Strawberry Malted Chocolate Hunk Yogurt Loaf for Twelve Loaves

Remember when I announced that there was a new bread baking challenge in town called The Bread Baking Society and I participated in the focaccia theme last May? Well that new bread baking challenge is now a NEWER bread baking challenge. My friend, Lora, of Cake Duchess, the brainchild behind The Bread Baking Society, has decided to give The Bread Baking Society a small makeover and has invited me, her Mom, Elizabeth, of food and thrift, Barbara of Creative Culinary, and Jamie of Life’s a Feast, along for the ride. Say hello to Twelve Loaves, and below is what it’s all about and the rules – beautifully written by Jamie and beautifully copied and pasted by me!

Twelve Loaves was created to inspire you to bake more from scratch at home, in your kitchen. Bake along with us every month and discover and rediscover the joys of home baking for your family and friends. We know it’s not an easy task and we are here to inspire you along the way. A Baking Revolution!

What unites Twelve Loaves and all of you? We love baking from scratch because people love eating real bread, real cakes, delectable treats right out of the oven. Together we will discover new recipes and learn and master new techniques, discover flavors, textures, new ways to experience bread at the table with family and friends. 12 months, 12 baked goods, 12 challenges… so get baking!

Our very first Twelve Loaves theme for the month of August is Bread with Summer Fruit. Bake a bread, yeast or quick bread, loaf or individual, filled, stuffed, studded or topped with your favorite fresh summer fruit or berries.

Just follow the rules, it’s as easy as pie:

1. When you post your Twelve Loaves bread on your blog, make sure that you mention the Twelve Loaves challenge in your post and mention and link back to Lora, Lisa and Jamie’s blogs. Please make sure that your Bread is inspired by the theme! This is obligatory if you would like your link to be included!

2. Please link your post to the linky tool at the bottom of Lora, Lisa or Jamie’s blog. It must be a bread baked to the Twelve Loaves theme.

3. Feel free to promote the Twelve Loaves by proudly displaying the Twelve Loaves badge in your Twelve Loaves post as well as in your sidebar! It isn’t mandatory but is a nice way to get the word out!

4. Have your Twelve Loaves bread post up any time in August..the deadline is August 31, 2012.

That said, this quick bread is kind of special because malted milk powder is added to the batter. There are malted layer cakes, malted milkshakes, malted milk balls, and I even saw some malted pancakes on the internet a few months ago, so why not a malted quick bread aka cake loaf?

I love most anything that has malted milk powder in it. One summer, years ago, there was a Dairy Queen about 15 minutes from where I lived at the time. Every time I passed it, which was often, I pulled in and ordered either a strawberry or vanilla malted milkshake. I still remember that first icy sip on those hot, summer nights, the malted flavor tickling my palate in such a good, good way . That Dairy Queen was soon knocked down, replaced by a drive-through bank. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t let me withdraw a malted milkshake.

Soon I was knocking back boxes and boxes of malted milk balls to satiate my malted addiction.

Discovering malted milk powder in the supermarket was a happy day for me, and for the remainder of that summer, I was making my own vanilla malted milkshakes. But, but, but..they were not even close to the ones I used to get at Dairy Queen. I can never get a milkshake or malt as thick and creamy as the ones you get at any ice cream establishment, no matter how much ice cream I add. What’s the secret? Nonetheless, the malted flavor of my mediocre malts, still hit the spot.

To be honest, even though I loved having a DQ so close to me, I think every artery in my heart is glad that DQ went away, as well as my stomach and butt.

Having said all that, the flavor the malted milk powder imparts in this quick bread/cake, along with chunks of fresh strawberries and Valrhona chocolate, is out of this world, and reminiscent of a malted milkshake. The thing is, how do you describe the flavor of malted? I’ve pondered this over and over, and I cannot find any adjective(s) that fits. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

So, I took a base recipe for quick bread/loaf cake from the Joy of Baking, made a few basic changes to it, and then went to town . I love how it turned out; an explosion of fresh strawberries and creamy, melted chocolate throughout the super moist, malted vanilla loaf. Strawberries may not bake up very pretty, as you can see in the photos, but who cares if it tastes good?

Initially I was going to use a variety of fruits, minus chocolate, in this bread, sticking with my ‘eat the rainbow’ theme this summer, but then decided it was overkill. Plus, I couldn’t find a green fruit I felt would work well. Cooked kiwi? NO. Kiwi loses a ton of flavor when cooked, unless made into a jam with loads of sugar. Green grapes? Nahh..much better eaten out of hand. I felt the same way about strawberries until I had a roasted strawberry lemonade last summer. Yes, definitely roast-worthy!

In fact, I’d pretend not to notice if you roasted the strawberries prior to adding them to this strawberry malted chocolate chunk loaf!

All in all, I do have one regret; I wish I’d topped the bread with more strawberry slices and chocolate chunks. I sliced up one strawberry and placed it on top with a sprinkle of malted milk powder. The batter rose over half the strawberry slices, leaving me with three slices playing peekaboo, instead of the original six, front and center. So, if you do make this..I suggest a good amount of strawberry slices, chocolate chunks and malted milk powder on top. Not only will it look better, but it’ll add more texture, and flavor, of course.

Finally, once again, you have the whole month of August to link up your summer fruit bread; any kind of bread, no yeast required. Just click on the linky below and follow the directions. Don’t forget to tweet (if you use Twitter , not required) your fruity creation @TwelveLoaves with the hashtags #TwelveLoaves and #getbaking !

You can use any recipe you’d like, including any of ours! The sky is the limit..as long as your bread contains summer fruit.

Stir the malted milk powder into the sour cream or yogurt and let dissolve while you prepare everything.

Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl. Set aside. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In the bowl of your stand mixer, or in a bowl with a hand mixer, beat the butter until smooth. Add the sugar and continue to beat until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until combined before adding the next egg. Beat in vanilla extract.

On low speed, alternately add the flour mixture with the sour cream or yogurt malted powder mixture...ending with the flour, beating until just combined and uniform.

Place the strawberry and chocolate chunks in a strainer over a bowl or garbage can, and coat them with flour, about ¼ cup...shaking off the excess flour into the bowl or garbage can beneath it, until all the strawberry and chocolate chunks are coated with flour.

Fold the flour coated strawberries and chocolate into the batter gently, (the batter will be a little thick).

Pour and scrape the batter into a lightly greased and floured 9 x 5 - inch loaf pan. Top with extra strawberry chunks, chocolate chunks and a big sprinkle of malted milk powder.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 60 - 65 minutes, until the loaf is puffed, golden brown and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then remove from pan and let cool on rack fully before slicing.

Keep any leftovers wrapped and refrigerated for about two days at most. although I doubt you'll have any leftovers!

notes:

* I prefer chopped chocolate over chocolate chips because it remains melted and gooey long after baking, but you can use chocolate chips if you prefer.

I was just eyeing a recipe with malted milk powder. I think it’s a blessing I don’t have it on my overstocked baking shelves because I’d find a way to add into every thing I bake. Love your moist and luscious quick bread with chunks of chocolate and sweet strawberries. so happy the linky tool seemed to work:)Did you save me a slice..because I don’t know if Jamie really saved me some challah;)xx

Nice cake! I love cakes like this nice and clean outside which keep your hands clean and then all the gooey yummy stuff inside. Chocolate and strawberry really give the cake lots of moisture and taste :). Hope you can get in the zone and let that BBFL start to flow again soon.

I am so glad you made a quick bread because I love making quick breads and always am looking for great recipes. Yours is outstanding! And I am making this for my family! It is gorgeous. The strawberries and chocolate chunks only make it perfect! And I am intrigued about the malted milk powder. And now you have me craving DQ. The one where I grew up (dad took us there all the time) finally closed as did the beloved bowling alley which was just behind it. Sad.

Hooray for another reason to bake bread! 🙂 Reading this post inspired me and I’ve got my entry in the oven right now for this one… 🙂 I LOVE the idea of malted milk powder in this bread – YUM. It looks amazingly delicious and fresh. I can’t wait to give that recipe a try!

Hi Lisa, thank you for you kind comment on my blog. love your fruit bread with the strawberries and chocolate chunks, and such a great addition of the malted milk powder! I sure would love a slice right now. Will bookmark your recipe to try this amazing bread.
So nice to meet you. I shared this on google plus. Will follow you on twitter, and pinterest, and will add you to my blog roll list. It will be fun to follow each other and keep up with each other’s kitchen adventures. 🙂

You are to hard on yourself, your bread is just as worthy and magnificent looking. I would have this for breakfast all summer. You know I think I have never seen malted milk powder. i know the malt flavor but would not know where to get this malted milk powder 🙁

Ooo that sounds like such a fun event!! I have just got to get myself together and participate. I’m not the best when it comes to makings challenge recipes but this one is definitely very tempting. Your bread looks gorgeous !

I love malted milk powder too and a giant bag of Maltesers came with me when I went to Japan for 6 months. I was worried whether I’d be able to get my fix there. Now I am addicted to Ovalmaltine chocolate bars–it’s ovaltine crunchy stuff in milk or dark Swiss chocolate. Mmm. Anyway, enough about me! this bread looks delicious–strawberries and chocolate and malt too. I won’t be back in my kitchen till September but I’ll be sure to try it then.

I love quick breads but somehow I always end up baking a cake or a yeast bread instead. Wonder why is that. hmm
Anyhow, your loaf is so beautiful Lisa, even with those sliced strawberries on top playing peek-a-boo

The joke around here is that my husband puts malt on EVERYTHING. I like a little malted milkshake, vanilla please, but he seriously loves this stuff. This bread would make him happy! How do you do all these participation blogs? I am ready to bow out of SRC and that’s just one! I sweat it out every month!

Well, great to know there is a rainbow at the end of the pizza line…beautiful! Anytime you can make healthy delicious, I’m in! Oh, about sourdough, I have a love-hate relationship with having a sourdough starter…you feel obligated to use it whether you’re in the mood or not, kinda like a chain letter (or should I say chain email!)!
I’m going to start calling you “bad girl” for teasing and leaving us on a cliff where you leave off with your story…geez!

I am SO in!!! I really stink at making bread and quite frankly it scares me. That being said, what better way to get better and overcome my fears than by doing it every single month? So excited for this group. Hopefully after making a few loaves I’ll get more adventurous and creative but in the beginning I think I’ll adapt a recipe until I get the hang of it all 😉 This loaf sounds so delicious! I don’t think I’ve ever had malt flavor in a bread before and this definitely makes me want to give it a try. Lovely loaf! I actually just baked bread today but it won’t fit this theme sadly. But now I get to make bread twice this month 😉

No complaining about the fruit sinkage girl…mine sank all the way to the bottom! Always tricky here. Beat the dough too much and it rises to fast. Beat it not enough and ingredients sink. I feel a bit like Goldilocks. Why can’t I have it be ‘just right?”

I have that powder and wonder why I don’t use it more…would never have thought of for a bread so bread it will be. YUMMMMMMM!!!

I ladore vanilla malts and don’t get me started on malted milk balls. I won’t stop. So brilliant to add malt to a quick bread. It looks perfect. Love this challenge and will try to get my act together to participate.

I made your bread last night, but I used blueberries since the strawberries at the market didn’t look too good. WOW..the malted flavor with the fruit was so good..the loaf didn’t last a whole day! Thank you so much for your amazing recipe!

Mmmmmmm…I made a strawberry quick bread recently, but i was not impressed…I used pureed strawberries, and I think your strawberry chunks are a lot more appealing! I’m hoping to join this challenge if I can ever get life to slow down a bit 🙂

I’m sorry it took a bit to reply, but your comment was in my spam folder. Happens a lot. That said, I’ve been having a lot of trouble writing lately, and I don’t want to give you anything half-assed. I will do my best to get something up soon – I promise! I’m glad you’re enjoying it. Made my day 🙂

You brought back some fond memories of malteds with my dad. As a special treat he would make them for us, almost always chocolate. It’s been way too many years since I’ve one and never in a quick bread. I must give this a try. I mean what could be bad, malted milk, chocolate, strawberries, yum! I’m happy to be baking along with you, its such a lot of fun!

Wow! Am I ever behind! August is nearly over so I don’t think I’ll get around to posting but that won’t keep from making a fruited bread 🙂 our Dairy Queen was replaced with a bank too – what does that say about our society! Sad…

Wow! Am I ever behind! August is nearly over so I don’t think I’ll get around to posting but that won’t keep from making a fruited bread our Dairy Queen was replaced with a bank too – what does that say about our society! Sad…

Hi Lis!
According to your suggestion I Tried to attach the link for my plum bread, but it’s no longer optional
(says “This linky list is now closed”,
I guess that’s because I’m passed the deadline).
Maybe I’ll try to join next time, sounds like an interesting group 🙂